Hot Topics: Death Penalty: Social Aspects

"This book addresses the myriad controversies and examines the evidence regarding capital punishment in America. It answers questions regarding topics like the efficacy of capital punishment in deterring violent crime, the risks of mistakes, legal issues related to capital punishment, and the monetary costs of keeping inmates on death row. Presents 'Perspectives' from various writers, allowing readers to consider opinions from many informed individuals--including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and professors--who are concerned with capital punishment. Supplies easy-to-understand information for general readers seeking to learn more about the history, purposes, effects, methods, and costs of capital punishment. Provides a balanced, objective discussion of the arguments and complex issues regarding capital punishment, enabling readers to reach their own opinions and conclusions"

"A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas--and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America. "

Description: Death penalty today. Facing the truth -- Appearances and realities of lethal injection / Seeing ourselves from an international perspective -- International perspective on the death penalty / Trying to get it right -- Rethinking the death penalty / Power of stories -- Stirring hearts and minds / Christian rethinking of the death penalty. Forgiveness and healing -- Eucharist : forgiveness and personhood / Jesus Christ and sacrifice -- Jesus Christ as scapegoat : Christology, sacrifice, and the death penalty / Hebrew Scriptures : "an eye for an eye" -- Biblical principles : Mosaic law / Bible and the church -- WWJD? Jesus, the death penalty, and US Catholics / Church teachings on capital punishment. Catholic moral tradition -- Ancient, medieval and early modern views / Church today -- Church and capital punishment in the modern period / Catechism in historical perspective -- Catechetical tradition / Death penalty in the catechetical tradition -- Gospel of life / Least of these. Money matters -- Economics of the death penalty / Legacy of race -- Death penalty and race / Vulnerabilities and risks -- People with disabilities and the death penalty / Matter of discipleship -- Heart of our faith /

"Taylor identifies and analyzes its instruments--mass incarceration, militarized police tactics, surveillance, torture, immigrant repression, and capital punishment--through which a racist and corporatized Lockdown America enforces in the United States a global neoliberal economic and political imperialism. Against this, The Executed God proposes a "counter-theatrics to state terror," a declamation of the way of the cross for Jesus followers that unmasks the powers of US state domination and enacts an adversarial politics of resistance, artful dramatic actions, and the building of peoples' movements. These are all intrinsic to a Christian politics of remembrance of the Jesus executed by empire. Heralded in its first edition, this new edition is thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded, offering a demanding rethinking and recreating of what being a Christian is and of how Christianity should dream, hope, mobilize, and act to bring about what Taylor terms "a liberating material spirituality" to unseat the state that kills. (Publisher)."

ncludes bibliographical references and index.--While a great deal of research has been done about many aspects of the death penalty, very little attention has been paid to the movement organized against it. Coalition Building in the Anti-Death Penalty Movement fills that gap with an empirical examination of the external and internal factors that shape the role race plays in the anti-death penalty movement. While the death rows across the United States are overwhelmingly filled with racial minorities and the poor, the ranks of the anti-death penalty movement are dominated by white, middle-class professionals. The attention given to race arises out of this racial distinction between death row inmates and the activists who advocate for them.

Includes bibliographical references and index.--Countering conventional wisdom that attributes the decline in death sentences and executions to public rejection of the "ultimate sanction," Charles Lane argues that the death penalty is not only more popular than critics claim; it is also less flawed by wrongful executions or racial bias. Lane argues that capital punishment should be preserved, while proposing major reforms to address its real inequities and inconsistencies.